Now it always followed in those days that the moment a person believed he was dead, and that Christ had died for him, he had his burial there and then. Indeed, the Lord Jesus expressly taught His disciples to bury everybody that believed. On the day of Pentecost, 3,000 believed, and immediately there were 3,000 buried that very day.

It was just so with this Ethiopian: the moment he believed, he said, “See, here is water. What hinders me from being buried, or baptized?” How simple this is! He had learned he was a dead sinner, and what should hinder his burial? That is, Philip buried him in water as a dead sinner, a figure of the death and burial of Christ, the adorable Substitute. And then he was raised out of the water and went on his way rejoicing.

The water of baptism surely is not the infusion of some virtue or grace into the dead sinner. It is simply the figure or expression of the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ; and shows most strikingly how God looks upon every believer as dead, buried, and risen with Christ (Rom. 6:1–10).

No wonder that Satan should use every effort to pervert the use of this striking figure. Just mark what peace it gives to the soul when once understood. Imagine a person struggling with anxious perplexity, deceived with the notion that to be a Christian means to have the old nature made better. What a deliverance for such a one to submit gladly at once to the burial of the old man, to the fact that he has been fully judged and put to death in the person of Jesus on the cross: “dead with Christ”; “buried with Him”; “risen with Him”!